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Shillong, March 4: Meghalaya Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Mukul M. Sangma will begin a fresh innings as the state’s chief minister from tomorrow when he is administered the oath of office and secrecy by governor R.S. Mooshahary at Raj Bhavan here.
The swearing-in ceremony has been scheduled at 11.30am.
Sources said Sangma would be the lone Congress leader taking oath tomorrow as the list of 11 ministers was yet to be finalised.
With 29 Congress legislators making it into the Assembly, the task of choosing who should be inducted with Sangma has only complicated matters.
The other ministers will be administered the oath on a later date, the source said.
Sangma returned to the state capital from New Delhi this afternoon, but Congress leaders were tightlipped on who would be inducted into the ministry.
The chief-minister designate met AICC president Sonia Gandhi and other senior party leaders to finalise the names of Congress members who would be part of the yet-to-be-named government.
Till the time of filing this report, the list containing the names of those who have been selected to be part of Team Sangma was a closely guarded secret as the CLP leader has chosen to keep the cards close to his chest.
Several Congress legislators pleaded ignorance about the names of those 11 members who would form a part of the Sangma cabinet.
This will be the second time that Sangma will become chief minister.
He first took over the coveted post on April 20, 2010 following an intense rebellion within the Congress against then chief minister D.D. Lapang.
A year later in 2011, there had been a move to oust him from the chair and bring back Lapang. But that did not fructify and Sangma stayed in the chief minister’s chair till the elections.
On Friday, AICC president Sonia Gandhi re-anointed him as the CLP leader after the legislators authorised her to choose who should lead the Congress.
The task ahead of Sangma is gigantic. He has tofirst be able to finalise the 11 members who would be with him in the cabinet.
However, the task will not be as easy as it looks considering the fact that Meghalaya can have only a 12-member ministry.
In the past, rebellions within ruling camps in the state have stemmed from the fact that many could not be accommodated in the ministries. This often led to change of chief ministers and governments.
Having survived a bout of rebellion in 2011, it remains to be seen how Sangma balances the political equations to ensure that he will have a turbulence-free sail in his second term as chief minister.
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